By Blood and by Mean
by windycitywonder
Summary: Three chapters. Three months. October. November. December.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This is a quick bit. Part one of three in my FGB piece for the wonderful **Melissa228**. Muffin, you're the ST to my FU and if I wrote how much I love you... well, it would be longer than this chap-let. Thank you for being exactly who you are.

And thank you to **masenvixen **and **nerac** for your extra eyes... and your epic racks.

Word surgery brought to you by **annanabanana **and **ilsuocantante. **Your bones are my bones, ladies.

**Disclaimer: **S. Meyer owns all things Twilight.

___________

**October**

_2:46._

The dots on the clock display constantly flash. I count them until I reach 138.

_2:59._

The glow from the numbers is diluted. The red seems duller. I don't think the beams reach as far as they did last night.

_3:24_

There are seven patches of paint on my walls that don't match the rest.

_3:52_

My eyes are dry. I blink until they water.

_4:46_

I shoot straight up in bed. My knuckles are white as they grip the sheets. I'm sweaty and cold. My chest burns. There are four scratches across my skin; puckered, swollen, scarlet. I can't decide if I've forgotten my nightmare or am pretending not to remember it.

_5:04_

I stare at the pillow next to mine. I haven't smelled it. Yet.

_5:42_

The sky is getting lighter. I can officially wake up in eighteen minutes. For Charlie's benefit.

_5:59_

One minute. I inhale the pillow. It's getting stale, so I breathe deeper. A millisecond of memory meets me. His scent is almost gone.

And he… he _is_ gone.

Tomorrow, I'm unplugging my clock.

______

I think Charlie made breakfast; something's burning. It was nice of him to try, I guess. I grab a granola bar and leave the house without saying goodbye.

The air has that morning thickness. Everything is wet, but it isn't raining. It's cold enough for a jacket, but I don't wear one.

My truck engine takes a while to warm up. I'm probably late. I toss the granola in my passenger seat. It lands in a pile of twelve others, still in their wrappers.

Driving is mindless, like when I count things. I force a minimal division between feeling and functioning. I focus on the growling of my truck and colors flying by in symmetrical patterns. Green. Asphalt. Yellow. Asphalt. Green. And grey… always grey.

I wonder if it's grey where he is, too. My stomach churns. I might throw up. My window makes a screeching sound as I open it. The wind is bitter and nips at my skin. There's a difference between this numb and the constant.

I see a sign for Port Angeles. Five Miles. I make a u-turn. I'm definitely going to be late. Again.

______

Angela talks to me in the office. I watch her chapped lips while they move. It doesn't register until she's halfway down the hallway.

The floor in my classroom is covered with muddy footprints. There are brown blades of dead grass creating a path from the door to Mike's desk. I know it's him because he's pigeon-toed and drags one of his feet while he walks. He's also worn the same shoes every day since...

I don't hear my English lesson, but I'm still writing down almost everything. My body is composed of millions of dead-end synapses. Only the absolutely fundamental have survived. I'm a biological marionette.

My hand starts to cramp, so I stop and look over my notes. I understand the general premise. Apparently the class is discussing common themes from our recent readings. I don't remember much of it, but it's not hard to guess. Love. Betrayal. Death. Love. Betrayal. Heartbreak. Death.

I start to believe maybe they're one in the same. I don't like reading anymore, anyway. I think writers are criminal in their blanket oblivion to truth.

They're minions of misery, those suffocated by the constant attempt to put on paper their pain, its analogies, a literary crafting of the intangible. I know I'm not those empty caverns, those caged ribs holding nothingness, the stagnant hearts only pumping to maintain life. To stay _alive. _

The clichés of heartbreak are rooted in pathetic forays into shallow suffering. Their faux pain gives way to my own rage, the burning sensation unlike the one I formerly fell victim to, the one searing memory that exists to remind me-- at one point everything was real.

I trace the raised skin of my wrist with my pointer finger. It's noticeably frigid next to surrounding flesh.

If those who spat their sorrows knew, by any means, the magnitude of the emptiness I feel, their volumes would be written with nothing but the subtle grooves of empty pages, the vanilla paper blinding readers with its voids.

I'm tired of thinking today. I wish the analog clock was digital, so I could count flashing dots until class ends. Instead, I put my head down and settle on tuning in to the _tick-tock_ of the second hand.

________

The volume of the crowd in the cafeteria makes it difficult to hear my own thoughts. But not impossible.

It sounds like summer cicadas. An overwhelming, persistent buzz. I'm unable to concentrate on a single voice; it's too exhausting. I twist the cap off my lemonade and spend the rest of the hour wondering if this is how it always sounded inside _his_head.

I don't move quickly to leave when the bell rings. I throw my full drink in the garbage and shove the bottle cap in my pocket. When I get home, I'll put it with the rest of them.

______

I dig through my locker, feeling blindly between books and binders for the smooth edge of a CD. I look every day. I still haven't found it.

I check my glovebox on the way home. It's not in there, either.

______

My house reeks of air freshener, factory rain. It's giving me a headache.

Before I reach the stairs, Charlie rounds the corner and says… something. I'm not listening; I'm staring at the bundle of purple in his arms. I inhale that awful stench again. I gag.

My _sheets. _Clean. No stains. No wrinkles. No scent. No him. Nothing but smooth seams and factory rain.

I hear the blood rushing through my veins and feel my heartbeat vibrating in my skull. I imagine this is what it sounded like to him. Wooshing. Pulsing. Tempting.

I have no idea what I'm saying. I'm shaking, screaming, collapsing. My throat is dry, my face is wet, my vision is blurred. But I can see Charlie, and he looks… terrified.

I sleep on the couch and don't say a word to my dad for a week.

______

I can't sleep. There's a metal rod digging into my back. The clock on the DVD player is too small to read from here.

I pick fuzzy pieces off the blanket and roll them together until I pass out from sheer exhaustion.

For three hours.

There are a cloudy thirty seconds when I wake up and everything is fine. The enormity of reality hasn't set in. I'm blissfully oblivious, and the oblivion is more than I've felt in forever. I grab a pen off the coffee table. I groggily scribble something on the arc of skin between my thumb and forefinger. I turn over to see if he's there, watching me. The moment ends and the conscious and subconscious collide.

________

I'm early to school. I stay in my truck and notice smudged blue ink stretched across my hand.

_Eat. _

Right. I take three bites of granola before I feel sick. I stare hopelessly at a space across the lot.

No one parks there.

_______

I'm writing so fast. A sound breaks the barrier between my brain and body, and I need to hear it again.

Again.

Again_._

_Again._

"Miss Swan?"

My name is foreign falling from present lips. I don't know the last time I actually heard it. Not in nightmares. Not when it came from… him. Or my manifestation of him. The him who never left. Who never broke me.

I peek through the inconsistent curtain of my hair to the front of the class. Greasy strands began clumping together in recent hours…days…weeks. I tug the string of my sweatshirt between my lips. Gnawing. Gripping. Teeth pulling. Taking Breaths. Measured reminders.

"Could you repeat that?" I manage. My throat hurts. Twenty pairs of uniformly shocked eyes seep into me, see through me. Has it been that long since I spoke? They all stare. They know I'm as insane as I feel.

"Of course, Miss Swan. The Energy Mass Equivalence. E equals M C squared." I can feel her eyes on me but I don't look up. I don't respond. My pen flies across paper, neglecting lines or reason. Repeat. Again. Again.

This is textbook torture. Mental masochism. But I can't control it. And as demented as it is, I don't know if I want to. Is it better to remain miserable and know he existed? Or remain miserable and pretend he didn't?

The bell rings, momentarily dragging me from my mind.

I glance at the scrawl in front of me. Messy. Tear-stained. Lines of E=MC2. And dug deep black in random spaces...

_Edward Masen Cullen. _

__________

I check my locker after lunch. Still no CD.

_______

The doorbell keeps ringing. It's unbearably hot in my room. I get up to crack a window. It smells like winter, and I hear small voices. They're chanting.

_Trick or Treat._

I guess it's Halloween.

I go back to my bed. One of my floorboards shifts under my feet and I hear it softly tap into another. I guess it's loose. It seems to be missing a nail.

Three more rounds of trick-or-treaters come, but I don't move. I assume Charlie is not home. I do homework and then count dots. Again.

_Crack. Crack. Crack. _I go back to the window and look down. Unrecognizable small figures are hurling white spheres toward my house. One is dressed in all green. Another is wearing a helmet. I think they look funny.

They scamper off in different directions after the cardboard carton of eggs is empty. One stays and stands under a tree in the front yard.

He looks up. I haven't seen eyes in a while. He's white. Unnaturally white. The moon reflects in his slicked back hair. There is a dip of black dye in the middle of his forehead. And I see red. Trails of liquid crimson down both sides of his mouth, punctuated by two pointed white teeth. Fangs.

Fangs? A farce, a fairytale fictitious form of what I know to be real.

I'm pulling mouthfuls of air, desperate to breathe. I stumble until the backs of my knees hit the end of my bed. I'm choking, gulping still, heaving. I close my eyes painfully tight. I don't have anything to count in the blackness, so I just use numbers.

I turn around and glimpse at my clock.

_9:39._

He once told me,in his world, time was skewed. Decades passed like seconds. Since he's been gone, my seconds pass like decades. I begged him for immortality. He cherished my humanity. But the moment he left, I became undead on my own.

I reach behind the nightstand and rip the plug from the wall. No more time. No more flashing dots. No more time.

_______

**::ducks:: Still with me?**

**Up next is November. **

**For those who think I've abandoned Hand in Glove--- not in the slightest. I'm still in with those two. It's coming. Faith? I'm not a flouncer, I just stall a lot. **


	2. November

**Note at the bottom. Welcome back, lovelies. **

**November**

There are three tubes of chapstick in my coat pocket. One is almost empty. The edges are caked with old wax and the plastic scratches my lips when I use it.

It's mint. It tingles. A synthetic substitute.

My arms are sore, but I keep raking. Some leaves are slimy. They stick to my shoes. Goldenrods and auburns with sienna and pumpkin, piled high at my feet. I know these colors.

His autumn eyes.

I crumble a handful to bits. Another. And then another. I've made a mess of myself... again.

I like the crunching sound. It drowns out almost everything else.

I sit right in the stack. I'm fascinated by them. Or distracted. Either is welcome.

How can something so dead be so…beautiful?

Not the first time I've asked that question.

I feel the panic rise and rush inside, leaving my pile of autumn ashes behind.

Charlie snaps at me for tracking them into the house. I frantically brush myself off. Slap hard at my legs, my arms. Specks cling to me. The panic grows. My eyes burn. I was doing better today.

I shower until the water runs cold. It's an icy assault on my tired limbs. My pruned fingertips look like a grandma's. I wonder, briefly, if years have gone by. Since…

I'm no longer just _going_ insane. But, still, I sit on the edge of the tub and watch until my wrinkled skin stretches back into place.

Charlie left a note on my door. He asks me to go for groceries. He wants me out of the house. I want out of my mind.

I only miss the market by one traffic light. An improvement.

An old lady pushes her basket my way in the parking lot. I acknowledge by shifting my gaze from her shoes to her knobby kneecaps.

I hear whispering. But I have the cart with the wonky wheel and squeak. I notice the whispering sometimes, but the staring has stopped.

Drowning out.

I count floor tiles and check expiration dates. It's nearing December.

I put on more chapstick. I bask in the momentary minty memory.

I toss a bottle of cold medicine in my cart. I don't wear a coat. I have a cough. And if nothing else, maybe I'll sleep tonight.

For once.

Charlie wants a turkey. Twenty pounds. I see a display ahead. I don't want to ask for help.

I don't want to ask for help. I don't want to ask for help.

A cart crashes into my wonky wheel. People have already stopped when it processes.

They're staring. I want them to stop staring. The staring stopped. Lips are moving. Eyes shifting. I turn to look at the basket mangled with mine. A woman's hand covers her mouth as she leans to the man next to her. She has long fuchsia fingernails.

It's her cart.

She likes frozen peas.

She's staring and whispering. Whispering to the man. Staring at me.

"…says she's gone off the reservation since that Cullen kid broke her heart."

Cullen.

Cullen.

Swarming pain and pressure pin me down from the inside out. The void returns. This is square one. My colossal collapse. I think of one thing and one thing only before the numbness snaps in place my every point, my northest north and eastest east…

_I hate the way she said that name._

And he didn't break my heart. He took it with him.

_

Someone probably called Charlie about my market meltdown. I pretend to sleep when he puts the cold medicine on my dresser and shuts my window.

I reopen it and take a dose of thick syrup at 9:30.

I count flashing dots until 10:28.

Then I sleep.

For once.

_  
Something is burning. It's after noon. I don't remember dreaming. Which is alright.

Charlie is in the kitchen. There is flour on the counter. He's painting a turkey. With a paintbrush. And butter. So much butter.

The football game is on in the living room. I sit at the table and chop celery. He wants to make Gran's dressing.

His voice cracks when he says we're having company. Billy. Jacob. Other names. I try to smile. For Charlie. I don't manage it… but I try.

It would be different. She'd put me in a silly dress I'd beg to take off. They'd spend hours cooking for an army, but only for me. It would all be for me. He'd pretend to be embarrassed by his parents' pies, kiss my forehead and tell me it's because they love me. And he loves me. His mouth, that frozen perfection, receiving my thanks in tingly pecks. Humming my lullaby and seeing me off to a full, soundless sleep.

She's not here. They're not here. _He's _not here.  
She's gone. They're gone. _He's…_

Charlie puts a hand on my shoulder. I can't remember the last time he's come close enough for that to be a possibility. He tells me Happy Thanksgiving.

And then he tells me he loves me.

_  
I don't come out of my room when the others arrive. I find leaf dust on my floor so I sweep it. Four times. I count my lemonade caps. Thirty eight. I put on more chapstick. Twice.

Shouts erupt from the living room sporadically.

I unfold and refold all the clothes in my dresser.

I open my window more. I think you can hear everything in fall. The crunching leaves give people away. And if it's this loud to me, it must have been torture for…

Charlie calls me to dinner.

I keep my head down at the table. There is a plate already made for me. The turkey looks funny. Charlie burned it. There is a pile of black skin on the counter. The mashed potatoes are runny. The gravy is chunky. The green beans are greasy.

I watch the bird carcass vanish before my eyes, chunks ripped off and thrown onto plates, gobbled up and repeat. It makes me nauseous.

Bowls empty, everyone talks and laughs and clinks forks to plates at appropriate times.  
I still haven't touched my food. I shove it around on my plate to make it look like I've eaten. I haven't said a word. I'm invisible, and I prefer it. Drown out.

A foot jabs my shin from across the table. I jerk away. A few glance in my direction, but focus quickly back on their meals. They don't stare.

I feel a light kick again and adjust my glance from empty plate to chest.

Another kick. Chest to neck.

A tap on my foot. Neck to eyes. Eyes... it's Jake.

It's Jake and he's staring, but not staring like the others. He's… looking. With intent.

Jake's looking and I'm looking and can't stop. Eyes. An improvement.

The others are talking and he's still looking and I feel the panic bubbling.

I see it in his eyes. He's got this look. He's searching for something. And he's doing it with… pity.

And for the first time since… I feel pitiful.

-

**This is for Melissa228 and my cling for her.**

**Thanks to annanabanana and ilsuocantante for the word surgery. And miztrezboo for constantly singing me Lykke. **

**You know what's awesome about this fandom? We're in it for fun. This was fun. It took a while, but some sort of motivation found me and I'm all in. I love your kind words and messages more than you know. I'll never be an everyday or even every week updater. I'm thankful you guys know that, and read my silliness regardless. **

**Up next for me? Hand in Glove (gasp, it's happening). And then December. I adore you all, and hope to hear from you soon.**

**Xo. **


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